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Published: March 27th 2009
Arriving in Mendoza on Friday morning I found my way to my new hostel for the week. It was quiet, but had a little garden with a fish pond.. I mean swimming pool.
The town is full of aquaducts (used to prevent flooding) so you have to avoid falling down huge holes everytime you cross the road. The city was much bigger and busier than I had expected and siesta-time is traditionally followed in Mendoza. You´re unable to buy anything between 1-5pm!
I spent the weekend before school started exploring the squares (Plaza Espana, Plaza Italia, Plaza Indepencia etc). All very pretty and popular with the locals at siesta time. On the Saturday night, I wandered into Mendoza´s liveliest street, Villanueva, with a very English man I had met at the hostel. Again, a story for another day but let´s just say he likes science and computers a LOT! The street is lined with restaurants, bars and hostels and doesn´t even get slightly busy until midnight. We enjoyed a few drinks and I also randomnly bumped into a friend from Bariloche so we stayed for a few more drinks whilst catching up on the last weeks events.
The
following day I made my way to San Martin Park. It´s huge, almost as big as the city itself. It houses a museum, a traditional sports centre for the locals, a great lake, a grand statue that overlooks the city and even a zoo. Unfortunately I got little lost and didn´t quite make the zoo, but I did enjoy a long walk through palm tree lined roads anyway.
On the Monday I started my new school, Intercultural, and was placed in a class with two boys from Canada. Classes were from 8.30am until 1 and were exhausting! Following classes, we had Spanish conversation over lunch and further conversation classes in the afternoon. One afternoon we even had a lecture in "degustacion." In English, wine tasting. I do enjoy pretending to know what I´m talking about now! After school, a couple of us usually headed to a cafe lined street, Sarmiento, to have a well deserved coffee or ice-cream.
I spent the week mainly studying and I have even started to dream in Spanish so I must be learning something even if I still can´t speak it....
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